


A Drop of Liquid Luck

by lysanatt



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:08:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysanatt/pseuds/lysanatt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the Ministry Percy has to watch Neville Longbottom and the Minister for Magic gawk happily at each other. Percy wants what they have; he doesn't want to be alone for the rest of his life. As he finds the courage to invite out a man, he decides to help the otherwise reluctant fate on its way--with a bottle of liquid luck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Drop of Liquid Luck

It had taken Percy Weasley exactly twenty-four years, three months and three day to work up the courage to invite out another man. It had taken him two girlfriends, a war and one falling out with his father to realise that he'd learnt two important lessons. The first was that life was short. As simple as that. Life was short and Percy wanted to _live_. He'd been working, trying to do his best. He'd tried hard to have his talents as an administrator recognised. As he rose in the Ministry ranks, it became less urgent, all this recognition he'd longed for. He was Under-Secretary to the Minister for Magic, only one step from the position he coveted most. The second lesson Percy had learnt was that he was _alone_. It became even more evident as Minister Shacklebolt during the summer fell in love with another of his assistants, Neville Longbottom. The relationship between the two had been the talk of the wizarding world for months now.

And Percy was, to say it mildly, envious. He'd had his eyes set on the Minister, but obviously Kingsley Shacklebolt's eyes were quite busy elsewhere. Seeing how gorgeous Neville had become, it was no wonder. Although his boss was discreet, seeing the pair every day, watching their tenderness, the love, the longing for the other, was torturous. Not just because of Percy's crush on the Minister; he'd had those before. Percy liked power and he liked men who weren't afraid to use it. The crush on Kingsley Shacklebolt had merely replaced Percy's crush on Minister Scrimgeour, which in turn had replaced the crush on Mr Crouch Sr. Crushes aside, and on the bottom line, Percy wanted someone in his life, someone who cared to look behind the stiff correctness, behind the boring office robes. Someone who cared to see _him_ , see the passion and the longing, the loyalty and the fire that burned deep inside him.

Few did and it was killing him.

He knew that he had to take matters in his own hand. Nobody had ever asked him out or looked at him with that thinly veiled lust that the Minister and Longbottom shared, even when they were working together. Percy wanted that. He wanted friendship and care, yes, but he also wanted the passionate nights of rough sex and love intermingled. Intense, heated moments of need. The utter agony of being hopelessly, irrevocably in love. Only he wasn't in love and nobody was in love with him. Nobody as much as cared to take him to bed for a night and shag him. Basically, he had no idea where to begin falling in love with someone.

Percy's love life was fucked--and not in a good way.

It was on the twenty-fifth of November when Percy had had it. With himself, with being alone and with only a month to yet another lonely Christmas. He decided that something had to be done. As always, Percy was thorough. During his lunch break he meticulously drew up a list of men who had expressed more interest in him than merely a polite, _how are you, Weasley_. It was a very short list. Finishing his ham and cheddar sandwich, he decided to be brave. He wrote a short note to the first wizard on his list. There was a Quidditch match on Saturday and Percy had tickets, courtesy of his best mate, Oliver. If Cormac would care to join him? Percy used the last four minutes and thirty-five seconds of the break to find an owl and send the note. It was with some apprehension he watched the bird disappear into the sky.

He waited all afternoon for a reply and when it finally came, a short _Thank you, Percy, I'd like to_ , Percy got so nervous that he managed to drop a neatly sorted and finely aligned pile of folders on the carpet and, on top of that, forgot an appointment with a delegation of wizards, advocating the "return of the decently sized Runespoor".

When Percy went home from work, he decided in a bout of unusual frivolity to buy a new set of robes. That way, he'd at least look his best. He hurried to Diagon Alley, to Madam Malkin's. Madam Malkin herself was at the shop. She greeted him kindly, as befitting for a high-ranking Ministry employee. It did not take long to let her choose for him a midnight blue robe with a dark golden trim. Even Percy had to admit he looked nice in it. He paid--a larger sum than he'd expected--and left for the Cauldron where he'd decided to take his dinner. He didn't have much appetite as the arrangement, this going out-business, was rather anxiety-inducing.

Then it hit him. He was standing in front of the Cauldron's entrance when his attention was caught by the merry bell from the Apothecary on his left. There it was, the solution. He just needed to help luck on its way. Then he wouldn't feel so nervous and insecure. He'd be cool and collected and charming, and Cormac would want to see him again, and if they at least got that far, Percy was, despite his shortcomings, confident enough to brave a second evening out without any help from magic. He turned on his heel and went into the Apothecary.

His vault would be suffering, for the small vial of Felix Felicis cost twice as much as the elaborate robes.

Percy went back to Leaky Cauldron. A pint and a small dinner wouldn't ruin him. It was waste of money, but now that he was trying to become a new and better version of Percy Weasley, he understood that a touch of extravaganza was usually regarded as positive with those who did not understand the propriety of being modest. Observing a certain reluctance in the spending of one's money was indeed a virtue, but one, Percy understood, not appreciated fully by many.

 

'Oi! Weasley!' A well-known voice sounded from the depths of the Cauldron's dimly lit room. In the flickering candle light, Percy made his way through the tightly packed pub.

'Oliver? What are you doing here? I thought you couldn't get away from Quidditch practice? Shouldn't you be at Ilkley Moor for tomorrow's game?'

'I'm having a pint.' Oliver nodded at the glass in front of him. 'And it's not Butterbeer.'

'Let me,' Percy insisted generously (at least in his own opinion) and waved at Hannah to bring them each a pint.

'Oh, you're buying? What's the occasion?' Oliver grinned and punched Percy on the arm. Oliver was always so _physical_ , so relaxed with his constant touching. Percy found it a bit unsettling.

'None. Not really.' Despite their long friendship, Percy felt oddly reluctant to tell Oliver about his plans for Saturday. He knew somehow that his intention of going out with Cormac would be less than popular with Wood. Oliver could be so strangely possessive at times, as if he didn't like much that Percy had other friends. Percy didn't think that Ol would be endeared to the thought that Percy had more in mind than just mere friendship.

'I'm not on the team tomorrow. They decided to let some of the new players have a go. It's the Cannons; they could let a bunch of Hogwarts first-years take them on and still win. Good opportunity for the newbies.' Oliver looked as if he was sorely hurt by being cast aside for a newcomer to his beloved Puddlemere. He was in fact pouting, something Percy found endearing. He understood passion although people didn't think he would.

So I'll be going tomorrow. To the Luxembourg-England game,' Oliver stated.

Percy winced. Now he _had_ to explain. 'Merlin, I'm sorry. The tickets. You gave me your tickets to the game because... but now you... ' The reason Percy had tickets in the first place to a game that was sold out a year ago was that Oliver had been otherwise engaged, namely with the Puddlemere-Cannons match. And now he was not. Percy realised he had to explain. 'I... I'd love to go with you, but I... I invited Cormac McLaggen to join me.' The small amount of confidence about doing something serious with his personal life didn't extend itself to the explanation of said personal life to one's best friend. 'I'm sorry, Ol. I should have told you.'

Oliver's eyes widened. 'Apart from what you told me that you hadn't told me, is there something else you haven't told me?'

'Er, what?' Percy was rather baffled. Oliver looked angry. 'I'm really sorry. I knew how much you wanted to go to that match.'

'Match?' Oliver looked confused for a moment. 'I'm not talking about the match. I'm talking about you, _inviting_ McLaggen to go with you. It sounded for a moment as if you were inviting him to go out with you.' Oliver leant forward, his elbows on the table as he looked at Percy searchingly. He pointed at Percy. 'Now that I think of it, wouldn't it had been more _you_ to ask, let's say, Katie or Alicia or... a girl?'

'Erm,' Percy said and blushed. There was exactly this little tiny, infinitesimal, microscopic piece of information that he hadn't shared with Oliver. With anyone. Except Cormac McLaggen, at least to the degree that the man understood what Percy wanted. 'Perhaps.'

'So?' Oliver's blue eyes were almost black from anger.

'I'm gay,' Percy said and Disapparated.

 

It was time. Percy looked at his watch nervously. In five minutes he had to meet Cormac outside the entrance to the World Cup Quidditch pitch. He took the small vial he had purchased in Diagon Alley. The small sample of the luck potion would do its work and tomorrow Percy would be a happy and hopefully mated man. He downed the content and smiled as the golden liquid slid down. The day even felt golden, despite the looming November darkness. Percy pulled on his heavy winter cloak, the one with the Puffskein lining, and Apparated.

Outside the stadium, witches and wizards were hurrying to get inside. A few greeted him before they went through the gates. Percy smoothed his new robe, his travelling cloak hanging loosely over his shoulders. He looked his best, he knew that. Cormac would think the same, the Felix Felicis was his guarantee for a successful evening. The throng of people thinned, and still there was no sign of Cormac McLaggen. Percy looked around, slightly nervous. Perhaps the luck potion wasn't working yet? Another five minutes passed by and the square in front of the entrance looked empty. A few late-comers Apparated in and hurried through the magical gates to find their seats. The distant sounds of applauding spectators and of the referee presenting the teams echoed in the cold autumn evening.

So, if this was how luck looked, Percy felt quite cheated. He sighed and leant against the fence. No, he had bought the potion in an appropriate place. Diagon Alley's apothecary was among the best. It would work, although it didn't really feel like it.

'Perce!' In a flash of robes and eagerness Oliver Wood stepped out of thin air just in front of him. 'You stupid idiot!' Oliver punched Percy hard on the arm. 'What the hell was that about? You thought you'd just drop the bombshell and then leave me to figure everything out? Arsehole!' He snorted and held up a ticket to the game. 'I have a ticket. Now, where is that twat you invited in my stead?'

Quite overwhelmed, Percy didn't manage to reply to Oliver's tirade before a whistle sounded from the stadium. 

_AND GWENOG JONES CAUGHT THE SNITCH! ENGLAND WINS!_

'Oh, cock.' Oliver looked devastated. 'What the hell? Ten minutes? Not that I begrudge our team the victory, after all Luxembourg eradicated us in the lead up to the 1994 World Cup, so there.'

Percy wondered whether the bottle of liquid luck he'd bought was actually mis-labelled. Or perhaps reversed in some strange way. It could be. Now that he thought of it, it was highly likely, since everything around him seemed to go wrong. There was just this foreign, golden feeling inside him, as if he was bubbling with joy. Very peculiar. 'Rather brief, the game,' Percy said because it covered the event adequately.

'Very brief. But then,' Oliver said quite acerbically, 'you have much longer time to explain to me what that declaration meant. You're gay?'

Percy couldn't stop himself from blushing. 'I admit I broke it to you a bit... rashly. Yes.'

'We are going to talk. Now. Elsewhere.'

'But Cormac...' Percy looked bewildered.

'I don't sodding care about McLaggen, and what do you want with that blithering, stuck-up idiot anyway? He's intolerable and a lousy fuck to boot!'

'He's...' Percy blinked. 'He's _what_?'

'He's a lousy fuck, he doesn't like it up the arse and he's worried about his hair half the time. His _hair_ , Weasley! You're not going to be like that, are you? With the hair?'

'But I can't just leave and let him-'

'Unfortunately McLaggen was hit by a really bad Fur Spell this morning, and he'll be busy grooming himself for the rest of the day. Or so I've heard,' said Oliver with a wide grin that more than suggested where the spell had come from.

'Wait... what... I...' Percy felt really confused. 'I am not going to be like what?' This was getting out of hand and Oliver was acting strangely. 'First you tell me that you... you of all people have been with... with McLaggen and now you're worried about my hair in bed? Or am I just-'

'Oh, no. You're not. Wrong. And we are leaving now. Right now. I can't possibly let my best friend stand here without someone to take care of his needs.' Oliver grabbed Percy around the waist. 'Hold on!'

They tumbled into Oliver's large flat, into the bedroom. 'You should have told me,' Oliver groaned and pulled Percy's cloak off and threw it on the floor. 'Cormac McLaggen. Not in a million years I'll let him have you!'

Percy was still trying to process the information that Oliver had been there, in bed, with Cormac. 'You're only interested in Quidditch,' Percy tried, gasping as Oliver's strong arm flexed against his back. In the thin silk robe, the hard muscles were like ropes and knots against his back. 'You never told anything, either, about- I mean... you mentioned once that Marcus was hot, and that-'

'I'm telling you now,' Oliver growled and gave Percy his first proper kiss. It was nothing like the kisses he'd shared with Penelope and Audrey. It was hard, rough, almost brutal in its heated demand. Oliver took the opportunity of Percy's gasp, tasting his mouth. The feeling inside Percy, the sensation of his luck rising, was overwhelming. It was _precisely_ what he needed. The strokes against his palate and the taste of Oliver's afternoon tea caught Percy in a haze of familiarity and arousal. He hesitated before he with unpractised hands returned the embrace. Oliver's ribs were sharp. The long ropes of muscles swung their hard roads around Oliver's torso, creating a bulk here and a trench there; a body topography that Percy dizzily tried to explore while Oliver was entertaining himself by making Percy moan at every lick into his mouth, in the shell of his ear, on that spot on his neck that he'd never before realised was a switch to turn on this enticing electrical current in his body.

'Tell me again,' Percy said in one of the few instances when his lips weren't occupied with Oliver's body.

'I like men and in particular I like you. I will _never_ let McLaggen have you! I will never let anyone have you!'

'Again!' Percy liked the sound of that sentence. The words weaved their own spell, did things to his need that made him pull at Oliver's robe.

'I will never let anyone else have you,' Oliver gasped as Percy explored the flat planes of his naked stomach. 'And if you continue with that, _I_ am going to have you very, very soon.'

Percy stood tall and proud and _certain_ , looking Oliver in the eye. 'Good.' He leant in, lured by the scent of autumn and fresh air that Oliver wore. 'And I will have it up the arse,' he whispered into Oliver's ear, for this stupid, wonderful liquid luck was simply the best thing ever and nothing Oliver could do to him would be anything than fantastic. 'Could it be now, please?'

'Yes!' Oliver's enthusiasm was matching Percy's. 'Fuck, yes!'

It was a bit messy. It was quite a bit more messy than Percy thought. Oil was trickling down his thighs; cold streams of something greasy and musk-smelling. It was also a bit more painful, this in-and-out and conformation of his inner anatomy to the new shape it moulded itself around. The scratching of hair against his naked arse and the heavy, rhythmical slapping of Oliver's testicles against his buttocks, gently yet fast, made Percy hold on to Oliver, to reciprocate with his body. He felt open, vulnerable, conquerable. In exchange for the shallow thrusts, he offered Oliver moans, gasps, small moments of closed eyes shutting themselves to ward against the end of pleasure. It came soon enough.

Percy's touch-starved body was rebelling, on its own pursuing the crescendo that Percy had both feared and longed for.

Expertly, Oliver sensed the change and he claimed with his hard body everything Percy had to give. It was a release of his mind, too, for he could not hold back the cries of passion and need that he'd kept inside for so long. They escaped him, little traitors betraying how much this meant to him, to lie in his best mate's arms, feeling his attraction. 'Oliver,' was the only word that made sense, and Percy cried it so loudly that it almost had imprinted itself on his tongue as he finally had to let go. Oliver's deep moans mingled with his, creating this perfect background for the intense, enormous sensation that upended Percy's sense of equilibrium.

It took a long time before either of them were able to breathe.

Oliver looked at Percy with lazy, tired eyes. 'How long have we known each other?' He sighed, almost purring.

Percy's mathematically inclined brain seemed to work on its own accord. Or perhaps it was just that important to him. 'Thirteen years, two months, four weeks and twelve hours, give and take a few.'

'That's a long time. How long will it take me to convince you to move in with me? As in "live together"? Happily ever after and such. I mean, we have to celebrate Christmas together, so it'd be good if it wasn't too long.'

Percy let his instinct rule. It had worked extremely well this evening, to be a bit of the happy-go-lucky guy he sometimes wanted to be. 'Thirteen minutes, two seconds and a bit, give or take. If you start now.'

Oliver laughed. His laughter was low and soft and clear, like a tiny spring. 'So, will you, Perc-'

'Yes!' Percy's usually so restrained laughter unfolded itself and became round and beautiful and perfect as it hovered in the dimly lit room. 'Lord, yes!'

They made love again, slower this time, for Percy was sore and Oliver was tired, but it didn't really matter to Percy. What mattered was to elaborate on his knowledge of Oliver's body. What mattered was to listen to his favourite sound, Oliver's soft moans. What mattered was to eat and lick and sense this velvet that was Oliver's skin. Percy was so caught up in his exploration that it almost came as a surprise when Oliver slid into him. They gasped out their orgasm in each others' mouths, kissing passionately as the wave rolled over them.

Curling up in each others arms, it took only minutes to fall asleep, lulled by tender words.

 

It was the best morning that Percy had ever had in his life. He looked at the clock and watched the hands grasp at the time when the Felix Felicis stopped working. He still felt absolutely wonderful, but a bit sore. He watched it as the hands showed the time when had to get up and he didn't care. He watched them as they ignored the moment when he had go to work, but didn't, for it did not feel as important as it did to stay. And all the time he was watching Oliver, his best mate, the friend who had always been there for him, Oliver who was handsome and happy and lovely. Oliver who was now, most amazing of all, Percy's.

So Percy just lay there, in Oliver's bed, in _their_ bed, and he knew precisely how it felt for Neville and Kingsley when they were looking at each other with that passionate, loving look. He knew how it felt, for when he looked at Oliver, he imagined that he felt exactly the same. Everything just fell into place.

And Percy wasn't jealous any longer.

He was happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Eruditefic's prompt in hp_getlucky: "Percy's first date since the end of the war. He's trying to figure himself out and get over his failings, while still desperate to not end up alone. So he goes for that lucky lucky potion to take the edge off!"


End file.
